‘Shut down’ of Palestinian voices goes on
In 1984, Edward Said, a distinguished Palestinian-American scholar provided a thought-provoking reflection on Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. In his essay, Said posited that the Israeli war had a deliberate aim: “To reduce the Palestinian existence as much as possible.” He further argued that Palestinians were being denied the “permission to narrate,” implying that their voices and stories were systematically suppressed.
Said cautioned against the existence of “a disciplinary communications apparatus” in the West, which tended to both overlook “most of the basic things that might present Israel in a bad light,” and punish “those who try to tell the truth.”
Alarmingly, Said’s words continue to resonate nearly four decades
later.
On Friday, October 13, 2023, Litprom, the organization responsible for the LiBeraturpreis book award, made the decision to cancel the celebration honoring the Palestinian author Adania Shibli at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The LiBeraturpreis annually recognizes the exceptional literary contributions of women authors from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The cancellation followed the October 7 Hamas operation against Israel.
In addition, a public discussion with Shibli and her book’s German translator scheduled at the fair was also canceled.
Juergen Boos, Frankfurt Book Fair’s director, who is also the president of Litprom, sided with Israel and announced his decision “to make Jewish and Israeli voices especially visible at the book fair” via the fair’s Instagram account.
Adania Shibli who divides her time between Berlin and Al-Quds had been due to receive the prize for her novel, ‘Minor Detail’ at the fair.
The novel is an account of the 1949 war, in which clashes between Arabs and Jews saw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes. Shibli’s book makes reference to well-documented events related to the rape of a Bedouin girl in 1949 by an Israeli army unit.
However, the Frankfurt Book Fair’s alignment with Israel has not been without consequences, as it has faced significant backlash. The Malaysian government, for instance, expressed its dissatisfaction with the fair and announced a complete boycott, as reported by Reuters.
“The ministry will not compromise with Israel’s violence in Palestine, which clearly violates international laws and human rights,” Malaysia’s education ministry said in a statement late on Monday.
Additionally, the fair received criticism in the form of an open letter published on Monday morning, signed by over 1,000 writers and publishers. The letter denounced Litprom’s decision to cancel the award celebration, as detailed by the Los Angeles Times.
Wallace Shawn, Colm Tóibín, Eileen Myles, Hari Kunzru, Hisham Matar and hundreds of other writers and publishers signed the letter.
Resonating Said’s analysis of the communications apparatus in the West, the letter criticizes the fair’s attempts to suppress a Palestinian voice.
“At a time when the fair has issued a statement saying it wants to make Israeli voices ‘especially visible at the fair,’ they are closing out the space for a Palestinian voice,” the letter reads.
The signatories believe that the Frankfurt Book Fair has “a responsibility to be creating spaces for Palestinian writers to share their thoughts, feelings, reflections on literature through these terrible, cruel times, not shutting them down.”
Yet, it seems that the apparatus has remained intact, and while the Western media talk a lot about Palestinians, they do it without them.
“Editorial boards and columnists seem to have been quite consumed with talking about the Palestinians, often in condescending and even racist ways – yet they somehow did not feel the need to hear much from Palestinians themselves,” wrote Maha Nassar, an associate professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona, in 2020.